Tim F #58406
Well-known member
Just want to chime in with my own word of Thanks Softtower. Your efforts are much appreciated.
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G2 and F707 sample images (comparison)
- Thread starter softtower
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ZipperZ63395
Active member
great comparison...very impressive.
The night shots of the Sony wins me over handsdown.
would be nice to see simular full res comparisons with the Nikon CP5000 and the Minolta D7.
The night shots of the Sony wins me over handsdown.
would be nice to see simular full res comparisons with the Nikon CP5000 and the Minolta D7.
Thanks for the comparison. It was great to see shots of UT and Austin, especially the capitol building.
A few observations for those still trying to decide on a camera. I eliminated the G2 some time ago when I made picture comparisons to a Nikon 995. The G2 lacked, what I call, shadow detail. Take the capitol building picture, blow it up to a larger size, and increase ppi to 400. Zoom in and look at the corner of the building facing the camera. Notice the carved fluting in the stonework and you will see the Sony has more detail and the Canon is more washed out. Zooming in on the dome itself reveals even more difference between the two cameras. Shadow detail gives this photo or any photo more dimension, which in the end to me, is more pleasing.
I think anyone would be happy with either camera. Having a greater pixel count, a superb lens with greater telephoto capabilities (better for travel), and finer shadow detail, gives the Sony at least three advantages over the Canon G2.
Favor us with some more shots of the beautiful hill country around Austin and thank you again.
A few observations for those still trying to decide on a camera. I eliminated the G2 some time ago when I made picture comparisons to a Nikon 995. The G2 lacked, what I call, shadow detail. Take the capitol building picture, blow it up to a larger size, and increase ppi to 400. Zoom in and look at the corner of the building facing the camera. Notice the carved fluting in the stonework and you will see the Sony has more detail and the Canon is more washed out. Zooming in on the dome itself reveals even more difference between the two cameras. Shadow detail gives this photo or any photo more dimension, which in the end to me, is more pleasing.
I think anyone would be happy with either camera. Having a greater pixel count, a superb lens with greater telephoto capabilities (better for travel), and finer shadow detail, gives the Sony at least three advantages over the Canon G2.
Favor us with some more shots of the beautiful hill country around Austin and thank you again.
Stephen Waits
Senior Member
Eugueny,
Thanks for the comparison. Just curious - how exactly did you set the manual WB at night?
--Steve
Thanks for the comparison. Just curious - how exactly did you set the manual WB at night?
--Steve
R
Ron Parr
Guest
I think what you've described is a good example of the tradeoff between noise reduction and detail preservation. The G2 really tries to get smooth colors and I think it does some kind of smoothing in camera with the goal of giving very clean color reproduction. For example, the side of the building which is in shadow has very little color noise and has very natural stone-like look to it.
The 707 really aims to maximize detail and, despite the clear color noise reduction system, lets more CCD noise pass through to the final image. The side of the building that is in shadow has much more color noise and has a grainy appearance to it when viewed at full size. However, as you have correctly pointed out, the 707 preserves more detail.
Ron Parr
l
The 707 really aims to maximize detail and, despite the clear color noise reduction system, lets more CCD noise pass through to the final image. The side of the building that is in shadow has much more color noise and has a grainy appearance to it when viewed at full size. However, as you have correctly pointed out, the 707 preserves more detail.
Ron Parr
l
If I were you, Mike, I'd leave the sharpening to your post processing program. Reduce sharpening in the camera.
-Ed
-Ed
Martin Eager56124
Senior Member
This is EXACTLY what concerned me about not comparing applies with apples in the earlier post I made. You cannot compare the two sets of shots where exposure is concerned, because of two different metering modes being used.
The G2 shots were taken with center-weighted averaging. But the G2 has a much better metering mode - evaluative metering - which gives more accurate exposure in most normal circumstances and I am certain would give improved shadow detail (this is clearly highlighted in reviews of the G2).
Since the G2's evaluative metering mode is directly comparable to the F707's multi-segment metering mode, this would be a much fairer comparison where exposure is concerned. Using center-wieghted averaging skews the comparison.
I realise that Eugueny put in a lot of hard work and I don't want to knock his effots, and I also realise he admits on his site that the comparison isn't scientific. The problem here is that some people who are viewing these shots are making quite scientific analysis (which was always going to happen) yet the cameras haven't been placed on an equal footing to justify this.
I should point out I own a G2 and feel no need to defend it. But I feel obliged to point out that the G2 has a superior metering mode available to the one used in these comparison shots. If the purpose of a comparison like this one is to give potential buyers a good side by side look at these two cameras, then it is vital that comparable metering modes are used.
Cheers
Martin
I used a white sheet of A4 paper. Positioned it about 3 feet in front of each camera. I don't know if this is the best way. Will be glad to learn a better method for this.
About metering: as I pointed out already, cameras used different metering methods. But I just tried to get the right exposure, no matter which metering method cameras used - some pictures were shot with exposure comp. (bracketing), sometimes I switched metering to get the right result. But on most of the images exposure set right or almost right. I intentionaly left those indoor table pictures the way they are, just to point out that no matter which metering mode you use, F707 and G2 will give you noticable different results when shooting indoors. F707 tries to compensate lack of light, to make picture more "nice". However, it's subject to personal preference. People at work who aren't into photography at all, are also divided: some prefer G2, some F707.
R
Ron Parr
Guest
I considered the possibility that the G2 had simply overexposed slightly when reviewing the shots. What's interesting is that the exposure in the darkest part of the image, the bench on the bottom left, is about the same for both cameras, but the 707 managed to hold on to more of the bright white areas than the G2 does. If the two cameras are performing about the same in the dark areas, but one has more detail in the bright areas, then this seems to be a clearcut case of one camer have a wider range than the other.
I appreciate your point about the metering and I think it applies to many of the shots on the page, but I don't think it applies to this particular case. Different exposure settings might have helped the G2 do better on the dome, but it would come at the expense of underexposing the bench relative to the 707 shot.
Ron Parr
I appreciate your point about the metering and I think it applies to many of the shots on the page, but I don't think it applies to this particular case. Different exposure settings might have helped the G2 do better on the dome, but it would come at the expense of underexposing the bench relative to the 707 shot.
Ron Parr
Thanks for the great comparison pics softtower! I still cannot decide which camera is better although I am awaiting Sears to deliver an F707 to me... I really appreciate your hard work and effort to put this together! Even though like you said it still may not be a truly accurate comparison, it is nevertheless a close comparison for us to look at and judge the camera qualities and characteristics. Thanks alot! This kind of stuff is always nice to have!
Willyee.
Willyee.
Martin Eager56124
Senior Member
Well, without the cameras both being in comparable metering modes, it's all rather conjecture isn't it?
Which is precisely why I was so disappointed to see two non-comparable modes used in this side by side comparison. Especially since the metering mode used for the G2 shots is the old center-weighted system inherited from the G1, whereas the evaluative metering system is one of the G2's much trumpted new features and which was mentioned lots in the reviews as being an improvement over the G1, and recognised by users as such too.
Now if I wanted to really dislodge a potential hornets nest from the tree I could point out the following
The DEFAULT mode for the G2 is Evaluative Metering. This is how the camera comes supplied. So, the user would have to go into the menu to select Center-Weighted Metering (and in doing so would spot there's two modes).
Which makes it strange that Eugueny would say on his web site:
"I want to mention that by default these two cameras use different metering methods. G2 uses center-weighted-avereage metering, and F707 relies on the multi-segment metering".
Cheers
Martin
R
Ron Parr
Guest
No - the point of my message is that it's not conjecture. It doesn't matter how the shot was metered. The dark end of both shots are essentially equal in intensity, but the 707 has retained more detail at the high end. This has nothing to do with conjecture. It's a direct obervation. Open up photoshop and look at the intensity levels for the bench in both shots. They are essentially the same.
Ron Parr
softtower,
First of all, thank you very much for doing all this work and putting this terrific comparison on the web for all to see! I haven't gone through all the pictures in detail yet. But, I will look at and compare all the high-res pictures tonight from home. From what I could see from my quick pass through the 800x600 pictures while at work, it looks like the cameras performed very similarly.
I have an F707 on order at Sears. It is supposed to be due on 10/24. :-( But after looking at most of the pictures from everyone who has theirs already, I started to wonder if I would be happier with the G2 rather than the F707. So, last night, I ordered a G2 and will soon (hopefully!) be doing my own comparison.
One of my hangups with the F707 is how it handles reds. I have noticed that some (most?) of the reds are very bright (hot) and some are actually orangeish. You mentioned that you have a Photoshop fix for this. Can you share what you do in Photoshop to fix the problems with reds? I should mention that I am very much a novice with editing/touching up pictures...
Thanks again!
I look forward to finding out which camera you ended up keeping!
Paul
p.s. I am glad to hear that the rest of the colors are accurate from the F707.
First of all, thank you very much for doing all this work and putting this terrific comparison on the web for all to see! I haven't gone through all the pictures in detail yet. But, I will look at and compare all the high-res pictures tonight from home. From what I could see from my quick pass through the 800x600 pictures while at work, it looks like the cameras performed very similarly.
I have an F707 on order at Sears. It is supposed to be due on 10/24. :-( But after looking at most of the pictures from everyone who has theirs already, I started to wonder if I would be happier with the G2 rather than the F707. So, last night, I ordered a G2 and will soon (hopefully!) be doing my own comparison.
One of my hangups with the F707 is how it handles reds. I have noticed that some (most?) of the reds are very bright (hot) and some are actually orangeish. You mentioned that you have a Photoshop fix for this. Can you share what you do in Photoshop to fix the problems with reds? I should mention that I am very much a novice with editing/touching up pictures...
Thanks again!
I look forward to finding out which camera you ended up keeping!
Paul
p.s. I am glad to hear that the rest of the colors are accurate from the F707.
Costas Vlachos
Forum Enthusiast
First of all, many thanks to Eugueny for the great comparisons. About the issue of blown highlights and shadow detail, it is not entirely correct to say that the 707 has more range because both cameras have equal shadow intensity but the 707 preserved more highlights. This could well be caused by a more aggressive contrast setting on the G2. Setting the constrast to LOW on the G2 and re-taking the picture could have easily achieved the desired effect. What I mean is that the G2's CCD may well have the range, but Canon may have decided to give the G2 images that extra "punch" at the expense of a more "stretched" histogram.
Costas
BryanS
Senior Member
I'm so glad you did this, as it's saved me a lot of work... and I don't want to duplicate your efforts when my F707 comes (hopefully tomorrow). It appears that my decision may be more difficult than I originally imagined, as these cameras are VERY close, and there are pluses and minuses of each that your demonstration shows.
Missing from your review are a few things I want to concentrate on: CA comparisons, internal flash comparisons, and external flash comparisons. I have the HVL-F1000 (I believe that's the number) for doing the comparison with the 420EX on the G2, and external flash performance is VERY important to me. That, and CA, of course. I'd also like to see how portrait detail and DOF compares between the two, and actual convenience in shooting (highly subjective, of course), but I want to share my impressions with each.
If differences remain less than significant, the actual choice for me may come down to comparing features, which wouldn't be a bad thing for Sony at all.
Bryan
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Ron Parr
Guest
My statement is valid in regard to the performance of the cameras in the modes at which they were used. You're certainly right that different settings could produce different results. For one thing, my exif reader reports that the G2 was set to ISO 100, which is not its best mode. My reader doesn't report contrast settings.
Ron Parr
First of all, wait until your F707 arrives, then make a few shots on your own - so you'll know how your subject's color really looks like.
Then open picture in PhotoShop, go to Image-> Adjust-> Hue/Saturation. Select the red channel and play with saturation slidebar, until you like the results.
Bryan, can't wait to see your flash comparison results: I am also interested in comparing the same camera flash (either one) as "internal against external", in other words is it realy worth buying an external flash?
I haven't done this, because flash shooting isn't the main priority for me and I had only two days with both cameras and only 64MB of compact flash. ;-( If you need an assistance with sharing your results, you can contact me in regard of the web-space.
Eugueny
Mike K
Veteran Member
That is precisely the difficulty with this type of comparison. In older comparisons reported here such as S75 vs G1 full auto was used as a basis of comparison. Unfortunatley any conclusions were only valid for those shooter who use full auto all the time (certainly at least a few do). The same can be said here, it is rare in ANY chort term comparison for the camera to be used optimally. Afterall Softower has both of the cameras less than 1 week and is not as experienced a photographer as Phil Askey. n For example, I would have preferred the G-2 to be used in RAW (optimal for setting contrast, saturation, sharpness and WB) to produce TIFFs, not JPEGs. Well of course it would never be an apples to apples comparison, but perhaps the idea is to compare optimal camera usage to optimal camera usage. Isn't that how most of use would hope to use each camera, optimally?
Overall, scientific comparison with real (not test) images is quite difficult; I appreciate Softower did the best he could in a short time.
Regards, Mike K
Overall, scientific comparison with real (not test) images is quite difficult; I appreciate Softower did the best he could in a short time.
Regards, Mike K
BryanS
Senior Member
softtower,
I do have webspace, so I can host my own images, but it may be nice to consolidate our results on the same page. When I get mine and get some images put together, I'll contact you, OK?
Thanks!
Bryan
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